Hookers and Booze

Submitter: I snatched this up when my high school’s library held a sale of the oldest and most useless books, although I’m not really sure why it was there in the first place. Not a single person had checked this out. Also, I was expecting a book about prostitution to have some juicy bits; instead I was treated to speculation on whether or not some women from Saskatchewan were hookers, based on the fact that they were seen in the company of men, wore red lipstick, and showed their ankles. Pure scandal!

Holly: Well, those were scandalous situations in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries! This sounds kind of funny – the police and clergy were outraged by all the brothels popping up in prairie towns. There’s a companion book:

‘Hooker’s happy hunting ground’ rang a vague bell, and indeed Wikipedia tells me that Xaviera Hollander’s book “The Happy Hooker” came out in the same year. Hey ho. I wish I hadn’t known that. Goshdurn those predatory hookers, eh, happy or otherwise?

It’s somebody’s idea of what Victorian bad girls looked like. You can tell they don’t have on enough petticoats – their skirts don’t look like a bundle of carpet. The hair doesn’t reflect any specific era.

I too wonder why these books were removed from a library. Are they historically inaccurate? Is there more recent edition? Do we not want to read about hookers in the Wild West? They were part of that culture.

Red Lights on the Prairies is a classic of Canadian history. How many public libraries have strong readership in Canadian history? Mine does–we have this book and it circulates well. If yours doesn’t, weed it! Weeding is always contextual, no?

Gray was a respected author of popular histories. He won numerous awards, including Pierre Berton Award and the University of British Columbia Medal, and he was a recipient of the Order of Canada.

Although I’m not familiar with Red Lights on the Prairies, I expect the cover does the work a great disservice. That said, it is very much in keeping with its time – by which I mean the 1970s, not the 1870s.

Must say I’m quite surprised that it was never once left the library. I’d have thought the subject and pitch would’ve appealed to high school students. Too embarrassed to check it out, perhaps?

Great title,and the subject reminds me of an awful month-long family road trip on the oregon trail. the only highlight, for a stupid, wanna-be-rebellious teenager was sneaking peeks at copies of “Soiled Doves of the Old West” which was in healthy stock at every single small town museum along the trail.

Red Lights on the Prairies may be a scholarly book, but the fake “19th Century ” photograph on the cover is AWFUL. It helps to perpetrate a Hollywood myth that beautiful, bold tarts with hearts were involved in frontier history – when of course they were actually raddled old toothless trollops with syphillis.

“of course they were actually raddled old toothless trollops with syphillis.”

Crikey- all of them? -they must have had to drug them thar poor innocent cowboys. Who all looked and acted just like Alan Ladd in Shane. When they weren’t being drugged and Taken Advantage Of by ROTTWS, leastways. Hornswoggled, too, probly.

Awesome! I actually own a copy of Red Lights on the Prairie (my parents were big prairie history buffs), and I’ve used it for research (clearly not super up to date research, but still). It’s actually pretty interesting if you’re into prairie history, and the cover makes it a total keeper for my own collection.

Got to admit, if I found this book — or that Burt Reynolds one — for an euro somewhere, I’d probably snap it up for my trashy book collection. Red Light even got reissued as a “Western Canadian Classic” in 1995…